Page 40 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
Alarmed, Jade pushed herself up, her hair sweeping over her shoulder and pooling along his side. "Mathias," she said a little louder. "Captain!"
That seemed to reach him, at least a little. His body stilled for a moment, his grimace relaxing into a frown.
She cupped his cheeks, stroking her thumbs over the tears escaping from the corners of his eyes. "Mathias," she said again. "Open your eyes."
He did. Once, and then again, his brow wrinkling up with the effort of it, his gaze absorbing the low light from the moon as they attempted to focus on the woman above him. It took a moment, but he did recognize her, his face going slack with relief, and he breathed her name like it was the answer to a thousand unspoken prayers. "Jade."
"It was only a dream," she said softly, stroking the tips of her fingers along his cheeks, smoothing the hair off his brow. "Only a bad dream."
He made a sound like a chuckle, swallowing down the bile that tinged alongside it. "I know," he croaked, reaching up to slide his hand down her bare arm. "I know. It is nothing."
"It isnotnothing," she replied, her eyes wide. She could feel the sweat in his hair, had touched the tears on his cheeks. She would not let him lie to her, and as soon as he opened his mouth to do just that, she said again, "It is not nothing, Mathias. You were in torment."
His gaze slid to the side, doubtless thinking up some manner of dismissing her concern, some excuse for this thing that had taken him as he slept.
"Tell me," she said, before he could shift his mind into flippancy. "Please."
He hesitated, taking a deep draw of breath and squeezing his eyes shut, another tear springing from his lashes and rolling down his cheek, and carefully, he moved his eyes back to her face.
There was silence for a long moment, a stretch of nothing where Jade was certain she could hear their hearts pounding in the empty room.
She did not wish to trap him in another kind of agony, and wondered if this confrontation had done just that. He watched her in such a way that she thought he might be afraid to speak, afraid to tell her what haunted him. So she gave his cheek a final stroke of her fingers and eased down onto his chest, resting her cheek against his heart. She wrapped her arms around his middle, holding him close in the hopes that it would slow his thundering heart and bring him some comfort.
"It is okay," she whispered. "You do not have to tell me if you do not wish to. I only wish you peace."
Slowly, so slowly it was almost unreal, his arms came up too, and wrapped around her, his hands warm against her bare back, his biceps flexed against her sides, and he rested his hands on her back. In the space of a few heartbeats, their breathing seemed to fall into tandem, as though they were sharing the air in the quiet room.
She had given up on the hope that he would speak by the time he did, his voice low, barely above a whisper, but meant for her all the same.
"Sometimes I'm a child, running from the dogs," he said. "Sometimes I'm in the prison, in Portugal, and I know another beating is coming very soon. Sometimes I'm standing in front ofLa Falaiseand I can't make myself go into my own childhood home, because I know that no one inside is upset by my absence, no one inside is waiting anxiously for my return. Some of them are things that have never happened at all, just things I fear. But all of them feel just the same. All of them...hurt."
"Every night?" she asked carefully.
"Most nights," he answered with a sigh, the strain easing from his voice and giving way to resignation. "Unless I'm on the water. For some reason, the dreams don't haunt me at sea."
Her brow wrinkled, taking this in. "Why not?"
He released a short breath of helpless incredulity, something adjacent to a laugh. "I do not know," he admitted. "Perhaps because the dreams can't find me when I'm sailing, as though they aren't fast enough to catch me once I've left the land. That is how I've always thought of it."
"They chase you, then?" she asked curiously. "They come from the outside."
He considered this for a moment, his body relaxing. He began to stroke her hair, running his fingers into it, rubbing the tresses between his fingers. "I suppose I've always thought so," he allowed. "But of course, rationally, I know my demons reside within."
"I don't see why they'd have to," Jade told him. "My own sorrows have oft come from the outside, and it was my daily burden to swat them away before they loomed too close."
At that, he did release a little bit of a chuckle, the sound bringing with it a wash of relief into Jade's soul. "It is hard to take accurate aim when one is asleep."
"Then it is well you have a companion with you tonight," she said softly. "I will protect you from the demons. It is a particular talent of mine."
"Oh, Jade," he started, but trailed off rather than finishing the thought.
Perhaps he had accepted the truth of it, in the space it took to draw breath to decline her offer. Perhaps some small part of him hoped it was true, and that she would stand sentry by his side so that he could sleep in peace.
Or maybe he remembered that she'd spent her life protecting her mother from demons, too, and knew she could defeat them.
She listened to the sounds of their breaths mingling, echoing one another, harmonizing in the dark. She continued to listen as his hands stilled and his breathing grew deeper and slower.
And this time she did not sleep, because she had made a promise.
